The present invention broadly relates to a method and apparatus for storing flat products arriving in continuous formation and, more specifically, pertains to a new and improved method and apparatus for the storage of flat products, especially printed products, continuously arriving, especially in an imbricated formation.
Generally speaking, the method of the present invention serves for the storage of substantially flat products, especially printed products, arriving in a continuous formation, especially an imbricated product formation, wherein the products of a first, precursive subformation of the arriving formation and the products of a second subformation of the arriving formation following the first subformation, after a preliminary winding-up of the products of the first subformation to form an intermediate coil or wound package, are simultaneously and conjointly wound up at a winding station to form a storage coil or wound package.
The apparatus of the present invention is of the type serving for the storage of substantially flat products, especially printed products, delivered in a continuous formation, especially an imbricated formation, by a delivery device and comprising a first winding mandrel arranged at a first winding station and drivable in a first winding direction for forming a storage coil or wound package and a second winding mandrel arranged at a second winding station and drivable in a second winding direction counter to the first winding direction for forming an intermediate coil. The delivered continuous formation comprises a first, precursive subformation and a second subformation following the first subformation. A conveyor device delivers products of the first subformation and products of the second subformation simultaneously to the first winding station and delivers products of the first subformation to the second winding station.
A method and an apparatus of this type is known from the British Patent Publication No. 2,111,028 corresponding to the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/445,565, filed Nov. 29, 1982. This method and apparatus permits the formation of a main or intermediate coils or wound packages whose coil layers are formed by two mutually superposed imbricated product formations. When emptying or unwinding this storage coil, both such formations are wound off conjointly and one formation is directly conducted away while the other formation is first wound up to an intermediate coil and then conducted away at the rear of the first formation (cf. British Patent Publication No. 2,112,758 corresponding to the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/445,564, filed Nov. 29, 1982) and since granted as U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,982 on July 2, 1985. Both in forming and in unwinding the storage coil, a certain amount of time is required for changing the direction of rotation of the intermediate coil when switching over from winding-up to unwinding and vice versa. This is a reason that, for continuously delivered products, it is not readily possible to process all arriving products with a single intermediate coil and a single storage coil such that the conjointly wound-up formations permit the reformation of a continuous formation when later unwinding the storage coil.